Vanilla Panna Cotta with a Verjuice-Gooseberry Compote

A delicate, barely set vanilla cream topped with a glorious sunset-orange compote of Verjuice and Cape gooseberries. Verjuice enhances the tartness of gooseberries, and the contrast of cool and creamy with sharp and sweet is sublime. You can prepare this dessert well in advance and merrily assemble it at the last minute.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with a Verjuice-Gooseberry Compote

This is another in a series of new recipes I've developed using Verjuice (available at Woolies). If you don't have Verjuice, poach your gooseberries in a light sugar syrup (see Cook's Notes at the end of this page).

Like this recipe? Try my Fresh Plum Jelly with a Lemon Panna Cotta Topping.

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Wine recommendation by Michael Olivier. He says: "Asara Vine Dried Sauvignon Blanc 2014 - a stunner of a natural sweet wine."

It looks like: Packed in a 375 ml Alsatian Flute.  In the glass a golden straw - and please serve it in a decent sized glass..

It smells like: Soft dried apricots and sliced lime poached in fynbos honey. 

It tastes like: Rich and unctuous: desiccated pineapple rehydrated in fynbos honey. Guava, yellow Canary melon.

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Vanilla Panna Cotta with a Verjuice-Gooseberry Compote

For the panna cotta:

300 ml cream
300 ml full-cream milk
5 Tbsp (75 ml) caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, or a few drops of good vanilla extract
4 tsp (20 ml) tepid water
2 tsp (10 ml) gelatine powder

For the compote:

200 g Cape gooseberries
½ cup (125 ml) Verjuice
2 Tbsp (30 ml) caster sugar (or more, to taste: see recipe)

Put the cream, milk and caster sugar into a saucepan.  Split the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds and add them to the pan (or add the vanilla extract, if you’re using that).  Bring gradually to just below the boil, over a low heat, stirring now and then.

When the sugar has dissolved, take the pan off the heat and gently press a sheet of clingfilm directly onto the surface of the mixture (this will prevent a ‘skin’ forming).  Set the cream aside to infuse for 45 minutes, or until it has cooled to blood temperature.

Put the water into a small teacup or ramekin, sprinkle over the gelatine and set aside to ‘sponge’ for 3 minutes.  Now place the cup in a pan of simmering water (the water should come halfway up its sides) and leave it there for a 3 minutes, or until the gelatine has melted and the liquid is clear.  Whisk this into the cream mixture, then strain the cream through a fine sieve into four wine glasses.  Chill for at least 5 hours, or until the panna cotta has set, but is still very wobbly.

To make the compote, put the gooseberries, Verjuice and caster sugar into a saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer, skimming off any white foam as it rises.  If the gooseberries are very tart, you may need to add a little more sugar.   Simmer for about 7 minutes, or until the fruit is just beginning to collapse.  Remove from the heat, tip into a bowl, cover, and refrigerate until very cold.

When you’re ready to serve, remove half the whole gooseberries from the bowl using a slotted spoon and set aside.  Use a potato masher or fork lightly to crush the remaining berries.  Spoon a layer of the crushed fruit over the top of the panna cottas, and top with the whole berries you put aside

Serves 4.

Cook's Notes: 

If you don't have Verjuice, poach your gooseberries in a light sugar syrup.  Here's how: put ½ cup (125 ml) water into a saucepan and add 4 Tbsp (60 ml) caster sugar - or more, to taste, depending on how sour the fruit is.  Bring gently to the boil, stirring occasionally. When the sugar has dissolved, add the gooseberries and continue with the recipe (paragraph 4, above).

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Simply Amazing Magic Custard Tart

Amazing and magic are two words I don't use lightly when it comes to recipes, but I must make an exception here (and also break my rule of featuring only original recipes on this blog). This trembling, luscious custard tart, with its delicate cakey topping, makes itself in the oven, and it's one of the most interesting recipes I've come across in years.

Simply Amazing Magic Custard Tart, with a soft cake topping, a rich custard base
 and my addition of burned-sugar stripes. You will notice that the custard in the
 slice on the right looks firmer than the custard in the two slices on the left.
The right-hand slice was cut from the very edge of the dish, and the other two from
 its middle. So the next time I made this dish, I placed it in a bain-marie, which helped
 to even out the texture. Plate by David Walters. 

I made this more elegant version of Magic Custard Tart - plated here in a puddle
of Jersey cream -  in a bigger (and circular) flan dish. I think I prefer the squares
 in the picture above, however, as the custard base is thicker and softer.

You can't really see it clearly in this picture,
 but the custard separates into two distinct layers.
 In this version,  I sifted the flour twice, which
created a thicker & lighter cake topping. 

I noticed this recipe appearing in various forms on Pinterest a few weeks ago, but couldn't help feeling doubtful about it. How can an alarmingly thin batter of eggs, flour, melted butter, vanilla and milk transform itself into a creamy custard tart of perfection? What kind of wicked kitchen alchemy is this? Well, I don't know the exact science behind this, although I have tried - in the process of testing and re-testing it - to figure out how it works.

I'm going to give you the recipe right away, but if you're interested in my testing notes, my tweaks, the origins of this recipe, and some important watch points, please scroll down to the bottom of this post to read my Cook's Notes.

I've given these ingredients in both grams and cups/ml, but I suggest that - for perfect results - you weigh the ingredients using a digital scale.


If you don't have a scale, use cups & tablespoons marked in  millilitres, and be sure to measure exactly, levelling off the tops with a knife, and not pressing down on the ingredients.

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Simply Amazing Magic Custard Tart 

125 g (125 ml) butter

2 cups (500 ml) full-cream milk

4 large, fresh, free-range eggs, at room temperature
150 g (about 155 ml) caster sugar 

115 g (about 225 ml) cake flour, sifted
a drop or two of lemon juice

1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract or essence

the finely grated zest of half a lemon (about 1 tsp/5ml)

To top:

icing sugar, for decorating

fresh strawberries or raspberries

Heat the oven to 160 ºC, fan off.  Grease a deep ceramic or glass baking dish measuring 20 x 20 cm, or coat its inside generously with baking spray.

Cut the butter into cubes, place them in a pot or microwave-safe bowl, and add the milk. Warm the mixture on the stove or in the microwave, until all the cubes of butter have just melted. Stir well, then set to one side.

Separate the eggs into two large bowls. Squeeze two drops of fresh lemon juice into the bowl containing the egg whites. Using a hand-held electric beater (see Cook's Notes, below) whisk the whites until just firm. They should form soft, snowy peaks that hold their shape, but they mustn't be at all stiff or dry.  Set the bowl to one side.

Add the sugar to the egg yolks and, using the same beater (no need to rinse it), whisk at a medium speed for about two minutes, or until the mixture is pale, thick and creamy. Add the sifted flour and the luke-warm butter/milk mixture, bit by bit, and alternately, beating all the time at a medium speed.  Make sure the butter/milk mixture is just warm, or it may curdle the eggs.

When you've added all the flour and butter/milk mixture, beat at a low speed for another 30 seconds, or until slightly foamy. Stir in the vanilla essence and grated lemon zest.

Now comes the only tricky part of the recipe: incorporating the beaten egg white. It's virtually impossible to fold in the egg white, as you would do with a thicker cake mixture, because the batter is so thin.  So here's how to do it: scoop a quarter of your beaten egg white into the mixture and, using a wire whisk, briskly beat it in to lighten the batter. Now tip in the remaining egg white and use your whisk gently - very gently - to incorporate it into the batter, using the tip of the whisk in a light spinning motion.  When the mixture seems reasonably well combined - don't worry about any small egg-white lumps and bumps on the top - pour it into the greased dish.

Use the tip of the whisk to break up any lumps of egg white on top, then place the dish in a deep baking tray. Fill the baking tray with hot water so that it comes to two-thirds of the way the sides of the dish and place in the oven.

Bake the tart at 160 ºC for 45-60 minutes, or until it is a rich brown on top, and still slightly - but not alarmingly - wobbly in the centre. The centre of the mixture should give a reluctant shudder when you jiggle the dish.  Keep a careful eye on it, as the topping turns very brown in an instant.

Immediately remove the dish from the bain marie and allow to cool. You can serve this warm with custard or whipped cream, but it's best chilled overnight in the fridge.

To serve and decorate: generously sift icing sugar all over the top of the cake. Cut into squares, and serve cold, topped with fresh fruit.  For instructions on how to mark the top of the tart with a hot skewer, see below.

Serves 6

A marking of burned sugar adds a satisfying caramel crunch to
the tart. See Point 9, below. 

Cook's Notes 

1. I tested this recipe four times, adjusting the ingredients slightly with every try - less sugar, more flour, and so on. I also tried making it with Stork baking margarine - my late mother-in-law Audrey always insisted that this produces the lightest cakes - but this version wasn't as light and delicious as the buttery ones.
2. In these notes I've included some important tips that will help you to perfect this dish. Having said that, it may - curiously - not be important for you to heed this advice. Every time I made this, the result was slightly different, but not once did the recipe fail. It's pure kitchen magic. See Point 4, below. 
3. The significant changes I made to the recipe were to add lemon zest; to bake it in a bain-marie to prevent the outer edges of the custard browning; to add a few stabilising drops of lemon juice to the whites; and to warm the milk and butter together. (The recipes I used as sources warmed/melted the milk and butter separately, which required an extra bowl. I figured that warming them together would ensure that both ingredients are at exactly the same temperature when they go into the egg yolks.)  I also added a decorative topping of burned-sugar stripes (see Point 9, below), which add a lovely delicate caramel crunch.
4. Because the batter is so thin, it's difficult thoroughly to incorporate the beaten egg whites without losing some volume. A light touch is important here but, even so, the recipe is quite forgiving - if you watch the video mentioned in Point 10, below, you'll notice that the batter is handled quite roughly, with no ill effects. 
5. Carefully measure out all the ingredients (I place them on small squares of baking paper) before you start with the recipe. This will allow you to put the cake together very quickly, so it doesn't lose any volume. Place it straight into the oven once you've added the beaten egg whites.
6. Be sure to double-sift the flour -  I did this in my final test and the cake layer was noticeably thicker and lighter (see the third photograph, above). 
7. You can use a normal wire whisk to make this dish, and plenty of elbow power, but a hand-held electric whisk is best. I tried making this, the first time round, in my Kenwood Chef, but it was too powerful, and the egg whites were too stiff to mix easily into the batter. 
8. There are some interesting chocolate versions of this recipe here, here and here, but I haven't tried them.  
9. To make caramel stripes on the tops of the squares, heat a flattish metal skewer in a high flame.When it is very hot, press it lightly into the icing sugar layer to form caramelised stripes. You'll need to keep re-heating the skewer, as it cools down fairly quickly.  Do this shortly before serving the squares, or the caramel may turn sticky. It's easiest to do this once you've cut up the tart, but quicker to mark the entire slab in one go. I did this by easing the whole tart - which was very cold - from its glass baking dish. First, run a sharp, thin-bladed knife around the edges to loosen them. Then stand the dish up on its side so it's vertical, and wait until the vacuum below the custard layer releases. Let the whole slab of tart fall into your palm, then gently slide it onto a board. 
10. I can't pinpoint the original source of this recipe. Most of the more recent recipes on food blogs and Pinterest give as their source this recipe & video by Spanish food blogger Mabel Mendez. After some digging, I discovered that this dish is of Romanian origin, and that there are dozens of online versions of it written in that language.  It's called 'Prajitura Desteapta' (roughly translated by Google as 'Smart Cake'.)  Here's an example of a recipe written in Romanian, with some useful step-by-step pics.    

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Winter Pavlova with Pears, Mascarpone & Caramel Sauce

A luscious confection of vanilla-scented poached pears, a brittle meringue case, flurries of cream and a scandalously rich caramel sauce. This isn't a dessert you can rustle up in an instant - it takes time and effort to prepare - but I hope you will give it a bash, because I reckon you (and your guests) will be delighted by the result.

Winter Pavlova with Pears, Mascarpone & Caramel Sauce.

Classic Pavlovas have a slightly squidgy centre, but this is a rather dryer version, because I'm a fan of crackly meringue that's as white as snow and crumbles to a sweet dust in your mouth. Admittedly, this isn't easy to achieve when you're baking such a large volume of whipped egg white, because much depends on your oven, the freshness of your eggs, the humidity in your kitchen, and the other vagaries of the sugar/egg relationship.

I'm not a natural when it comes to any type of meringue - damn, it's tricky to make - but after much experimentation I've found that a slow drying-out process is the way to go.

What makes this dish special is the lovely taste of home-poached pears.

You can use any variety of pears for this recipe, provided they are small, sweet and just ripe. Yes, I know this is a tall order, because most pears are perfect for 20 minutes before they collapse into a floury mush.  But there are ways around this - please see my Cook's Notes at the end of this page.

If you're in a hurry, feel no shame in using excellent South African tinned pears. Your finished Pavlova won't look as glamorous, sure, but it will still taste glorious. And please keep the syrup for poaching other fruits. I put some cut-up guavas into the left-over syrup to cook, and my daughter described them as tasting of 'flowers and happiness'.

Winter Pavlova with Pears, Mascarpone and Caramel Sauce

5 extra-large free-range eggs
a pinch of cream of tartar
250 g caster sugar
1 x 250 g tub fresh mascarpone
1 cup (250 ml) fresh cream
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
¼ cup (60 ml) flaked almonds, lightly toasted to golden-brown in a dry frying pan

For the poached pears: 
5 small, ripe pears
2 cups (500 ml) water
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar, or light brown sugar
1 whole vanilla pod [optional]
a thin slice of lemon, peel on

For the caramel sauce: 
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar
5 Tbsp (75 ml) water
½ cup (125 ml) cream
3 Tbsp (45 ml) butter

First make the Pavlova. Heat the oven to 160 ºC. Separate the eggs, placing the egg whites in a spotlessly clean metal bowl. Add a pinch of cream of tartar. (Keep the yolks for making mayonnaise!)

Using an electric beater or a food processor fitted with a balloon whisk, beat the egg whites until they are standing up in stiff, dryish peaks.

Now trickle the caster sugar into the egg whites, a few tablespoons at a time, beating well between every addition. Take your time over this. When you've added all the sugar, continue beating for another 3-5 minutes, or until the meringue is extremely thick, firm and shiny (with no sign of grittiness when you rub a blob between your fingers) and easily holds its shape without drooping. (See Cook’s Notes for more tips)

Line a metal baking sheet with baking paper (put little blobs of meringue on six points under the paper to stick it down). Draw a circle on the paper, using a dinner plate as a template.

The meringue should be very thick & glossy. 

Spread a third of your meringue mixture over the paper, in an even circle. The easiest way to do this neatly is to place a pile of meringue in the centre of the circle, and then - using a palette knife - gently press down and out to create a neat, swirling circle.

Now place generous dollops of the remaining meringue around the edges of your circle (see picture; left).

Place the baking sheet on the middle rack of your oven, and immediately turn the heat down to 110 ºC (oven fan off). Bake for for an hour and a quarter then switch off the oven (don't open the door!) and let the meringue case dehydrate for for at least 8 hours, or until it is crisp and dry.

In the meantime, prepare the pears. Fill a large bowl with cold water and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.  Using a potato peeler, neatly remove the skin from the whole pears, leaving their stalks intact. Drop each pear, as you've peeled it, into the bowl of lemony water.

The syrup is flavoured with vanilla & lemon. 

To make the poaching syrup, place the water, sugar, vanilla pod and lemon slice in a saucepan, set over a medium heat and bring to the boil. When the syrup begins to bubble, stir it gently until all the sugar crystals have dissolved. Simmer the syrup for a further 5 minutes.

Place the whole pears in the syrup and bring up to a gentle simmer. Cover the pot with a lid, turn the heat down to its lowest setting, and poach the pears for 5-8 minutes, or until they are just soft.

Let the pears cool completely. 

Fish the pears out of their poaching liquid and set aside on a plate to cool. Cut them in half lengthways, leaving a stalk on one half. Using a teaspoon or your thumbnail, gently pop the oval core out of each pear half, tearing it up towards the stalk to remove the fibrous threads.

Put the mascarpone into a bowl and beat it thoroughly until smooth. (It helps to leave it at room temperature for a few hours, until softened.) Whip the cream to a soft peak in a separate bowl, add the vanilla, and gently fold this into the mascarpone.

To make the caramel sauce, spread the caster sugar evenly over the bottom of a dry, thick-based frying pan, and sprinkle over the water.  Cook over a medium-high heat until the caramel is dark, rich golden brown, swirling the pan to distribute the dark-gold areas (see Cook's Notes)  Whisk in the cream, and then add the butter. Stir well and set aside to cool.

To assemble the Pavlova, fill the centre with two-thirds of the cream/mascarpone mixture, and arrange the pears on top, stalks pointing up. Place blobs of the remaining cream on top. Drizzle over the caramel sauce, and scatter the almonds on top.

Serves 6-8.

Cook's Notes

1. The meringue must be really, really stiff and glossy, or it will collapse in the oven.

2. The caramel sauce I've used here is loosely based on Gordon Ramsay's recipe. This is arguably the trickiest part of this recipe, as caramel is temperamental: not only does it burn with alarming speed, but it also has a tendency to crystallise for no apparent reason,  If your caramel suddenly turns thick and grainy after the sugar has melted, it cannot be rescued. Tip it into the bin, and start again in a new dry frying pan. Don't stir the caramel, and use a pastry brush to sweep any grains of sugar off the sides of the pan as it is heating.

3. To catch pears at their peak, place them in your fruit bowl alongside other fruits, which will hasten the ripening process. Check them twice a day by firmly pinching the flesh just below their stalks - when this is just soft enough to yield to the touch, peel and poach them, as described above. You can keep the pears, whole their syrup, for many days, until you're ready to make this dessert.

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Fresh Plum Jelly with a Lemon Panna Cotta Topping

A barely set, sharp-sweet jelly made with fresh plums, topped with a creamy panna cotta mixture. This is a grown-up version of that most beloved and comforting of childhood puds, red jelly and ice cream, and I came up with the recipe because I couldn't think of what else to do with the bulging bag of ripe plums I hauled home last week.

Fresh Plum Jelly with a Lemon Panna Cotta Topping

Plums are reaching the end of their season in South Africa and are very good and sweet, not to mention cheap.

Every year I make the same mistake of falling into a swoon when I see plums piled in shining pyramids in my local shop, and I buy far more than my family is ever likely to eat. That's why there are plenty of recipes for plums on this blog (I've listed them at the end of this post, in case you too are faced with a mountain of plums that need to be eaten right away.)

The jelly had a lovely deep plummy taste, but my family felt that the vanilla seeds in the panna cotta overwhelmed the delicate jelly. I quite liked the combination, but because I've learned to listen to my family's (usually constructive) criticism of my recipes, I've left the vanilla pod out of the recipe below and instead added a strip of lemon zest to the panna cotta mixture. If you'd like to use vanilla anyway, omit the lemon strip and add a whole vanilla pod, halved lengthways, to the milk and cream mixture.

The plum pulp is not used in the jelly; I suggest you put it in the fridge to add to a smoothie, or whizz it up in a blender and pour it over ice cream. You can, if you like, add a few whole spices to the plums as they cook - a small stick of cinnamon, perhaps, and a clove and star anise - but what I wanted was a blast of pure plumminess with no interfering perfumes.

How much sugar you add to the plums depends on how sweet they are to begin with. I recommend that you start with three-quarters of a cup, then taste the syrup and add more if you think it needs it.  Measure the gelatine powder exactly, using level teaspoons.  For best results, start the jelly the day before.

This is pretty served in long-stemmed wine or martini glasses. Don't be tempted to put this in a jelly mould, as the recipe doesn't contain enough gelatine for the mixtures to hold their shapes when unmoulded. (You could add more gelatine, I suppose, but you'd run the risk of ending up with a nasty bouncy texture.)

Fresh Plum Jelly with a Lemon Panna Cotta Topping 

For the jelly:
12 ripe, juicy red plums
¾ cup (180 ml) water
¾ cup (180 ml) white sugar
a thumb-length strip of lemon zest, white pith removed
2 ¼ tsp (11.25 ml) gelatine powder
3 T (45 ml) tepid water

For the panna cotta topping:
300 ml whole milk
300 ml cream
5 T (75 ml) caster sugar
a thumb-length strip of lemon zest, white pith removed
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) gelatine powder
2 T (30 ml) tepid water

Rinse the plums, cut them in half and put them in a large saucepan (no need to remove the pips). Add the water, sugar and lemon zest. Bring gently to the boil, stirring now and again to dissolve the sugar. When the mixture boils, turn down the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the plums are just starting to collapse. Lightly break up the plums, using the back of a spoon, but don't mash them. Turn off the heat and set aside  for a few hours, preferably overnight. This will allow time for the deep red pigment in the plum skins to colour the syrup.

Line a large sieve or colander with a piece of cheesecloth (or a clean dishcloth, or some thick kitchen paper) and place it over a bowl. Tip the plums and their juice into the sieve and allow the juice to drip through into the bowl below.  Don't press down on the pulp or it will become rather cloudy. Discard the pulp, pips and lemon zest.

Measure out a cup and half (375 ml) of the plum syrup. Put the tepid water into a teacup or ramekin, sprinkle the gelatine powder over the top and set aside to sponge for five minutes. Place in a pan of simmering water - the water should come half-way up the sides of the teacup - and leave until the gelatine has melted and the liquid is clear (about three minutes). Remove the teacup from the pan and allow to cool for a few minutes. Stir the gelatine into the plum syrup. Divide the mixture between four wine glasses and refrigerate until set (about three hours).

In the meantime, make the topping. Put the milk, cream and caster sugar into a saucepan and add the strip of lemon zest. Turn on the heat and bring very gently up to just below boiling point, stirring now and then to help the sugar dissolve. When you see the mixture begin to seethe in a threatening way, remove from the heat and set aside for half an hour so that the flavour of the lemon can infuse (cover the surface of the mixture with a piece of clingfilm to prevent a skin forming).

Prepare the gelatine and water for the panna cotta as described above.

Stir the warm gelatine liquid into the the cream/milk mixture (discard the lemon zest). Strain the mixture through a sieve over the cold plum jelly. Refrigerate for another three hours, or until the topping has set to a lovely wobble.

I dusted a little pearl powder (similar to cake glitter, and available from baking shops) over the surface of the panna cotta, and I would have added a few little silver balls, if I'd had them.

Serves 4.

More of my recipes using fresh plums:

Fresh-Plum and Almond Cake

Glazed Roast Pork Neck with a Gingery Fresh-Prune Relish

Spiced Plums with Tamarind

Christmassy Plum and Tamarind Sauce

Festive Phyllo Crackers with a Spicy Plum and Almond Filling Print Friendly

Christmassy Plum and Tamarind Sauce

Here's an easy, quick-to-make fresh plum sauce that's sweet, tart, and scented with Christmassy spices that evoke all the comfort and joy of the festive season.  It's delicious poured over vanilla ice cream and topped with chipped bitter chocolate and fresh pomegranate seeds, or used as a topping for hot puddings such as bread-and-butter pudding. You can also use it, in dashes,  to add a fruity richness to gravies and stews. Welcome to the second recipe in my series of easy festive recipes for feeding a crowd.

I jump for joy when I see the first plums of summer in the shops, because there are few fruits I love more than ripe, juicy, ruby-red plums, preferably eaten warm and straight from the tree, with juice trickling down one's chin.  I don't get a chance to do that now I'm a grown-up and don't live anywhere near a plum tree, but the childhood memory of standing in a sunny orchard feasting on ripe, wasp-stung plums never fails to make my mouth water.

Isn't 'plum' a perfect name for this marvellous fruit? The word, in my mind, evokes both 'plump' and 'luscious', and it's one of my favourite food-words (I'm also a big fan of 'persimmon', 'peach', 'vanilla' and 'pepper': here's a post I wrote a few years back about delightful - and disgusting - food words).

This is a variation of my recipe Spiced Plums with Tamarind, which I posted on this blog in December two years ago. Although the plums (which I bottled) were delicious, they tended to disintegrate in the bottle, so I've refined the recipe and turned it into a sauce. This keeps well in the fridge for up to a week, and freezes nicely. If your plums are very tart (taste them first!) you may need to add a little more sugar than the amount I've specified below.

Christmassy Plum and Tamarind Sauce

4 Tbsp (60 ml) sultanas, roughly chopped
16 large, ripe red plums
30 g pressed tamarind (a piece about the size of a matchbox)
1 cup (250 ml) white sugar
a quill of cinnamon the length of your thumb
5 whole allspice berries (or 1 tsp - 5 ml - ground allspice)
2 star anise
a long strip of pared lemon rind
2 Tbsp (30 ml) white wine vinegar
2 cups (500 ml) water

Two hours before you make the sauce, put the chopped sultanas into a small bowl and cover with a little warm water (or port, if you like). Wash the plums and put them whole into a deep saucepan. Drain the sultanas, discard their soaking liquid and add them to the pot, along with all the remaining ingredients. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring occasionally to help the sugar dissolve. Now turn down the heat and simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until the plums have collapsed. Cover and allow to cool completely.

Place a sieve over a large bowl and tipped the cooled mixture into the sieve, in batches if necessary. Using the back of a soup ladle and plenty of elbow power, press the sauce through the sieve. This is a bit laborious, but pour yourself a glass of sherry, put on some music and persist until you have only skins and pips left in the sieve. Tip the sauce into a clean jug and refrigerate.

Makes about 750 ml sauce.


>> Another way to use the plums in season now: my Fresh Plum and Almond Cake

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Buttermilk Cheesecake with a Fresh Strawberry Topping

This delicate fridge cheesecake is perfect for a light finish to a summer meal, with its creamy, barely-set filling and zingy topping of fresh strawberries. I made this cheesecake a few months ago, and have been itching to share it with you ever since, but I held it back because I created the recipe specially for the fourth issue of South Africa's ground-breaking digital food & wine magazine Crush! Online, which went live yesterday.  Now that the December edition of Crush! has been released into the wild, I feel I can let my little cheesecake out of its cage.

Buttermilk Cheesecake with a Strawberry Topping

I'm very tickled to have been invited by Michael Olivier, editor and owner of Crush!, to contribute five of my original recipes to his regular 'Which Wine? Which Food?' feature. Michael - whom I first met less than a year ago, at the first South African Food Blogger's Conference - is an esteemed and well-loved elder of  the Cape's buzzing food and wine community.

When I say 'elder', I don't mean some sorry old fart or has-been, but someone who has earned the genuine respect of  his peers - and his many younger protégés  - by spending decades honing his pen, his palate, his knowledge and his exceptional people skills.

I've used buttermilk in this recipe because I think it's a most under-used ingredient, and because I love its taste: cultured buttermilk is tart, with a slight sweetness, and has a nice creamy consistency. And - agree with me please - it has a delightful name.

 [Postscript: Try using fresh maas in this recipe!]

Use a knife dipped in boiling water to cut perfect slices of this cheesecake.

A challenge with an unbaked cheesecake like this one is getting it out of the tin in one beautiful piece. My method is to line the base of the pan with clingfilm, which allows you easily to loosen the crust. Use a microwaveable hot-pack, or a cloth dipped in boiling water, to warm the sides of the tin before you unmould it (see Cook's Notes, below).

You can use any seasonal fruit as a topping: this cake is very good with granadilla (passion fruit) or mango. Use the same ratio of fruit pulp to gelatine, as laid out in my recipe, below.

Buttermilk Cheesecake with a Fresh Strawberry Topping

For the biscuit crust:
one packet (200 g) Eet-Sum-Mor biscuits, or similar shortbread biscuits
80 g (80 ml) unsalted butter, softened or melted

For the filling:
⅓ cup (80 ml) water
4 tsp (20 ml) powdered gelatine
one x 250 g tub of cream cheese
1 cup (250 ml) cultured buttermilk or maas [amasi]
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar
1 tsp (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
finely grated zest of a small lemon
1 cup (250 ml) cream

For the topping:
a punnet (about 250g) of fresh strawberries, hulled
2 Tbsp (30 ml) water
1 tsp (5 ml) powdered gelatine
lemon juice and caster sugar, to taste

Break up the biscuits and process them to fine crumbs in a food processor (or crush them with a rolling pin). Place in a bowl, add the soft or melted butter, and stir well to combine. Butter the base of a non-stick 24-cm springform cake tin, cover with clingfilm, and butter again. Tuck the edges of the clingfilm under the base, and place it in its ring. Press the biscuit mixture evenly onto the base of the tin and place in the fridge while you make the topping.

Put the water in a little heat-proof bowl and sprinkle the gelatine on top. Set aside for a few minutes to sponge. Place the bowl in a pot of simmering water (the water should come half-way up the sides) and stir occasionally as the gelatine melts. When the liquid is clear, remove the bowl and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Alternatively, you can melt the gelatine, in its bowl, in your microwave, but be sure to do this in 7-9 second bursts, on high.  Don't allow the gelatine to boil, or its setting properties may be affected.

Put the cream cheese and half the buttermilk into a large bowl and, using a whisk, beat until quite smooth. Beat in the remaining buttermilk, the caster sugar, the vanilla extract and the lemon zest, until you have a smooth mixture. Strain the warm gelatine into the bowl and mix well.  In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until it has formed thick, soft peaks.  Gently fold the cream into the cream cheese/buttermilk mixture. Pour the mixture over the crumb crust and refrigerate for 2-3 hours, or until firm.

Now make the topping. Sponge and melt the gelatine and water, as described above. Put the strawberries in a liquidiser, add a few tablespoons of caster sugar (depending on the sweetness of your strawberries) and blitz to a purée. Measure out a cup (250 ml) of this purée and to it add a few drops of lemon juice. Strain the warm gelatine into the purée, stir well and pour it evenly over the top of the cake. Refrigerate until set.

Warm the sides of the tin (as described below) and release the cake. Slide a palette knife between the crust and the clingfilm, turning the cake as you go, and then slide the cake onto a platter. Slice the cake using a knife dipped in hot water.

Makes one 24-cm cake

Cook's Notes

There are various methods of loosening a gelatine-set dessert from its mould. Professional chefs use a blowtorch, which is briefly flicked over the outside of the tin, but this is a risky business, as a few seconds too long can liquefy the outside of the cheesecake and, besides, it's useless if you're using a plastic jelly mould. A better way is to dip a kitchen cloth in boiling water, and press it to outside of the cold tin for a few seconds. But the best way of all, I've found, is to use a hot pack designed for soothing acheing muscles.

If you don't have a Happy Hugger, here's how to make one yourself. (I keep one of these in my kitchen drawer for the sole purpose of loosening jellies!). Steal a long cotton sock from someone's drawer. Fill it with rice or barley, and tie a firm knot in the open end. Place the sock in a microwave oven for 2-3 minutes, or until very warm to the touch. Press the hot pack around the edges of the tin, for 30 seconds at a time, moving it around the edges as necessary. At the same time, release the spring-form lever (or lift the cake ring)  in small increments.

 When you cut the cheesecake, use a hot knife (heated over a flame, or in a bowl of boiling water) for slicing. Print Friendly

Apricot Ripple Ice Cream

A scandalously rich ice cream made with eggs, cream and some fresh lightly stewed apricots. It's easy to make, if you can get your head around making a proper custard, and freezes to a lovely velvetiness, even if you don't have an ice-cream maker.

Apricot Ripple Ice Cream

I came up with this ice cream recipe after I bought some beautiful fresh apricots, the very first of the season. I love the taste of apricots, but I can't eat them raw because I have an aversion to the feel of their skin. A mild aversion, actually, compared to the way I feel about peach skin. I don't know if I'm the only person in the world with this affliction, but I cannot tolerate touching - or biting into - peach skin. Even writing about it brings up goosebumps on my arms and sends spiders skittering down the back of my neck. My hatred of the feel of peach skin (and, oddly enough, of the cone of raw wood just below the tip of a sharpened pencil) is so intense that I can't even watch someone else peeling or eating this most delicious fruit.

Naturally, anyone who knows this about me goes out of their way to sneak up behind me and rub a furry peach against my upper arm.

But back to the apricots. It's just as well that I don't eat them raw, because I do think that apricots are one of those fruits that just taste better lightly cooked, or dried, both of which processes bring out their beautiful astringency and perfume.

If you don't have an ice-cream maker, you can use the freeze-and-beat method.

Apricot Ripple Ice Cream

16 whole fresh apricots
½ cup (125 ml) white sugar
an 8-cm-long strip of fresh lemon zest
1½ cups (375 ml) water
1 Tbsp (15 ml) lemon juice

For the custard (crème anglaise):
1 cup (250 ml) cream
1 cup (250 ml) full-cream milk
½ cup (125 ml) caster sugar
6 large egg yolks
½ tsp (2.5 ml) pure vanilla extract

Put the whole apricots, sugar, lemon zest and water into a large saucepan and bring gently to the boil, stirring now and then to turn the apricots over. Cover, turn down the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the apricots have collapsed. Set aside and allow to cool. Stir in the lemon juice.

To make the custard, put the cream, milk and 2 T (30 ml) of the sugar into a saucepan and bring gently to just below the boil (watch the mixture like a hawk). In the meantime, using a whisk, beat the remaining sugar and the egg yolks in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Stir in the vanilla. Put the hot cream/milk mixture into a jug and pour it, in a steady stream, over the eggs, stirring vigorously as you do so. Strain the mixture back into the pan, turn the temperature right down, and reheat it very gently, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The mixture will begin to thicken slightly within a few minutes. To check whether it is done, coat the back of your wooden spoon with the custard and draw your finger across it. If the channel created by your fingertip remains open, or closes reluctantly, the custard is ready.

Do not, whatever you do, allow the custard to come anywhere near boiling point, as it will curdle and you'll have to turf out the lot.

Remove the custard from the heat, cover its surface with a piece of clingfilm to prevent a skin forming, and allow to cool to room temperature.

Place a metal or glass dish in the freezer. Set a large sieve over another bowl and into it tip the apricot mixture. Using the back of a soup ladle, stir and press down on the mixture, until all you have left in the sieve is the pips and bits of skin. (This is a little laborious, so turn on the music and take your time about it!).

Measure out half a cup (125 ml) of the apricot purée and set aside. Stir the remaining purée into the cooled custard and mix well. Place in the fridge to chill.

If you're using an ice cream maker, churn the mixture until firm and creamy. Tip into the bowl you placed in the freezer earlier and swirl the purée you set aside over the surface. Now gently 'ripple' it into the icecream, using a metal spoon, so it forms little seams of apricot. Cover and freeze until quite firm.

If you're using the freeze-and-beat method, ripple the reserved purée into the ice cream, as described above, about two-thirds of the way through the freezing process, or before the mixture becomes too stiff to stir easily.

Serves 6-8 as a dessert

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Gin and Lime Mousse

A thistledown mousse flavoured with fresh limes and a poke of gin. I like lemony mousses, and I love a cold gin & tonic on a hot night, so I thought I'd combine these tinkling flavours in a light summer dessert.

Although I was pleased with the texture of these mousses when they came out of the fridge, they didn't have much  of a gin taste. Adding more gin wasn't an option, because alcohol sometimes inhibits the setting of jelly.

Then I remembered my mum's advice: when mixing a gin and tonic, you should always splash a few drops of neat gin over the top of the drink, so that  your nostrils are assailed by a pure blast of gin flavour as you take the first sip. This is known, in my family, as 'waving the bottle over the glass'.

 I hope I'm not making my mother sound like a lush. She's not. But she does appreciate a G & T - as we all damn well do, Delilah!  - when our large family gathers for Christmas at a beach cottage on the south coast of KwaZulu Natal.

So, heeding the advice of my sainted Mama, I dribbled a few teaspoons of neat cold gin over the top of each mousse. It worked.

I've used leaf gelatine in this mousse because I find that, when it comes to a delicate mixture like this, the leaf variety produces a beautiful soft texture that can't be matched by powdered gelatine. Leaf gelatine is available at speciality food shops and some supermarkets (I bought mine at my local Spar) in South Africa.

If you can't find leaf gelatine, use an equal weight of powdered gelatine - that is, 10 grams. (If you don't have an electronic scale, buy the powdered gelatine in sachets.)

Lime and Gin Mousse

6 gelatine leaves (weighing 10 grams)
5 T (75 ml) cold water
3  large, free-range eggs
one cup (250 ml) caster sugar
the finely grated zest of three small limes
4 T (60 ml) freshly squeezed lime juice
5 T (75 ml) neat gin
1 cup (250 ml) single (whipping) cream

To top:
shreds of lime zest
a little cold gin

Put the gelatine leaves on a deep plate and cover with the cold water. Set aside to soak for 5 minutes.

Separate the eggs into two large bowls. To the egg yolks, add the caster sugar. Using a rotary beater or hand-whisk, beat the mixture for a few minutes, or until it is thick, pale and fluffy. Don't worry if the mixture seems claggy at first: it will soon loosen up.

Set the plate containing the gelatine over a pot of simmering water. While the gelatine's melting, beat the lime juice into the egg yolk/sugar mixture, a little at a time. Now add the gin in the same way, beating well between each additon. Stir in the lime zest. Remove the melted gelatine from the stove, allow to cool a little, and beat it into the egg mixture.

Put the cream in a separate bowl and, using the same beaters, whip to a soft peak. Gently fold the cream into   the egg mixture.

Place the bowl in the fridge for ten minutes to firm up. Wash the rotary beater's whisks in hot soapy water, rinse well, and then dry with a clean cloth. Now whisk the egg whites to a soft peak. Using a metal spoon, briskly stir a dollop of egg white into the egg-yolk/sugar mixture (this serves to 'slacken' the mix). Now, very gently, fold in the remaining egg white. Spoon (or pipe) into martini glasses and chill for two hours, or until set.

Just before serving, sprinkle each glass of mousse with shreds of lime zest and a tablesoon or so of neat gin.

Serves 6 Print Friendly

Elizabeth Moxon's Lemon Posset, but with Hanepoot & Glitter

A generous glug of South African Hanepoot adds sweetness and sunshine to this delicate lemony cream. Hanepoot (pronouned 'ha-nah-poort') is a much-loved sweet wine made from the ancient Muscat d'Alexandrie grape, believed by wine experts to be the one of the oldest genetically unmodified vines still in existence.  You can, of course, use any sweet dessert wine in its place, as long as it's not so old and noble that its perfume overpowers the lemon.

Elizabeth Moxon's Lemon Posset, but with Hanepoot and edible glitter.

I came across this recipe while browsing a cookbook that's become one of my favourites in recent years: Robert Carrier's Entertaining, published in 1977. It's not really old enough to be called a vintage cookbook, but enough years have gone by to make the book seem rather quaint, at least in comparison to the lavishly illustrated, self-congratulatory extravaganzas of the Nigella-Nigel-Jamie era (I'm not knocking these icons, but don't you loathe the way they drool, in print, over their own recipes?).

Still, this is a book worth hunting down, as are all of Carrier's books: it's packed with excellent recipes that deserve to be revisited.

'He was as influential as Elizabeth David or Delia Smith, and some argued that he was the link between them,' was what The Times had to say in his obituary. 'He became the leading populariser of the appeal of good cooking and helped to bring about a domestic revolution in imaginative, adventurous cooking.'

Until I saw this recipe, I hadn't heard of  Elizabeth Moxon - and found no trace online of a biography of this English cookery writer.  I was very pleased, then, to find that her 1764 cookbook, English Housewifry: Exemplified in Above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts, has been digitised and is available in plain text format at Project Gutenberg, or in its original form at Google Books.

From English Housewifry by Elizabeth Moxen.

Elizabeth's Georgian recipe (which is not, strictly speaking, a posset; it's more like a syllabub) calls for 'a jack' of white wine, and advises that you sweeten the cream with sugar, 'to your taste'.  Robert Carrier calls for dry white wine, and an unspecified amount of icing sugar. I compromised by using half a cup each of hanepoot and  icing sugar. Feel free to adjust these quantities, but take care not to add too much wine - your dessert will become too runny and won't set to a perfect, fluffy cream.

I have frivolously decorated the tops of these creams with edible pink cake glitter, in keeping with the Elizabethan taste for bedecking food with comfits, fruit-paste shapes, spun sugar and all manner of fancies.

Serve this dessert within an hour of making it, or it will separate.

Please note that this recipe contains raw egg white.

Elizabeth Moxon's Lemon Posset, but with Hanepoot & Glitter

300 ml cream
the finely grated zest of a lemon
the juice of a lemon
½ cup (125 ml) icing sugar
½ cup (125 ml) Hanepoot, or any similar sweet white dessert wine
the white of a large egg
finely grated orange zest
edible glitter

Put the cream and lemon zest into a bowl and, using a whisk or an electric beater, whip until the cream is thick and fluffy. Sift the icing sugar over the top of the cream, and then pour in the dessert wine and lemon juice.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, gently fold the mixture until well combined.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white to a soft peak and fold into the lemon cream.

Pile the posset into stemmed glasses (a piping bag is the only way to do this without messing the edges) and top with a little orange zest.  Place in the fridge. Just before serving, sprinkle with glitter. Serve within an hour.

Serves 4


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Vanilla-and-Mace-Scented Panna Cotta with Warm Blueberries

An enormous box of plump Ceres cherries and three punnets of dewy blueberries and luscious litchis arrived at my door on Saturday.  Hand-delivered, nogal, in a coolbox, by my new mate Trevor, who farms  blueberries in Stellenbosch and who also packages fruit for export and for top-end South African supermarkets. If this wasn't enough to make me emit hamster-like squeaks of delight, in walked Trevor's wife, Cindy, who is the Number One Fan of this blog, and whom I have never met in real life.  We fell into each other's arms like long-lost family friends (which, in a tangential way, we are).

Life is so curious. Some months ago I received a lovely chatty email from Cindy, a stranger, telling me that this blog had 'ruined' her first-ever holiday in Mauritius. Cindy, while reclining on the beach, picked up an issue of Femina (a South African women's magazine) and was intrigued by a feature piece about my blog. "I became quite desperate to see what the blog was all about," she told me in her email, "so I  toiled up to Reception and, once there, spend twenty Euros for the four hours' worth of Internet access on the hotel computer.  It was somewhat difficult for me to concentrate, after drinking two cocktails before 11am (then again, we were on the Serenity Plus All Inclusive Package!)

"So I phoned my 18-year-old son, whom we'd left back home in Stellenbosch, and asked him to check out the site and get back to me.

"Dumb thing to do. He got so inspired that he started cooking like a maniac and every night held a party for different friends to enjoy the fruits of his labours.

"I had left cash, and my credit card, with them in case of emergencies. Apparently cooking your recipes constituted an emergency.  I was dazed with the speed with which SMS alerts arrived from my bank notifying me of transactions.  I spent the week on tenterhooks and got home to find the following:

• A sleeping son
• A cross daughter (she put on weight licking out the bowls)
• An almost empty fridge
• An entirely empty booze cupboard and drinks fridge
• 3 cross cats who had been ignored in the thrill of it all
• My birthday  bottle of homemade Limoncello mysteriously gone missing
• My credit card balancing on a huge pile of faked signature slips
• A letter from my char that read " Hallo ther Ciny I is ver cross met eksra werk wat Nick se kosmaakery bring. [I am very cross about the extra work caused by Nick's food-making]. I take my hollidey neks week please 2 WEEK thankyou RACHEL".

"I suppose I should look on the bright side and beg you not to stop blogging because it's cheaper than buying Nick recipe books," she concluded.

I was delighted and flattered by Cindy's warm email (let's face it, blogging is vanity publishing) and we became virtual friends, via email and Facebook.  Shortly after that, Cindy sent her email to Femina magazine, and won a handsome suitcase when it became the star letter of the month.  Now here's the curious bit: my husband saw Cindy's name on an email in my inbox, and immediately recognised her name.  It turned out that they knew each other well, and were at school together at Bryanston High School during the late 1970s.

Anyway, it was lovely to meet her at last and for two days we have been feasting on fruit. I had no idea that blueberries were grown so extensively in South Africa - Trevor tells me that he sources blueberries from at least 18 different South African growers, and that the bulk of his own crop is exported to the United Kingdom.

I've only ever used blueberries in smoothies and muffins, so I promised Cindy that, to repay her in part for her  unswerving support of my blog, I'd come up with some blueberry recipes.

So, for starters, here is a delicate vanilla-and mace-flavoured panna cotta with blueberries.

Panna cotta so easy and quick to make that an 8-year-old could manage it, but it's vital to use just enough gelatine to achieve a light, trembling, barely set texture. I have used leaf gelatine in this recipe, which in my experience produces a more delicate jelly than powdered gelatine. You can - at last - buy leaf gelatine in South Africa (I bought mine in a Spar in Johannesburg; it's also available in specialist food stores) but if you can't lay your hands on some, you can use powder. I believe that, in general, two sheets of leaf gelatine are the equivalent of one teaspoon of gelatine powder (in which case this recipe would require 2 teaspoons, or 10 ml), but as I haven't tested this particular panna cotta using powder I can't vouch for the results.  I will make it again tomorrow using powder and give you a definitive measurement.

POSTSCRIPT: Here is that measurement: Use exactly 1½  tsp (7.5 ml) gelatine powder in place of the gelatine leaves. 

Vanilla-and-Mace-Scented Panna Cotta with Warm Blueberries
320 ml  full-cream milk
320 ml rich pouring cream
1 whole vanilla pod
1 blade of mace (or a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg)
100 ml white granulated sugar or caster sugar
4 leaves of gelatine (7 cm x 11 cm rectangles), or 1½  tsp (7.5 ml) gelatine powder
250 ml (1 cup) tepid water, for soaking

For the blueberries:
375 ml fresh or frozen blueberries
3 t (45 ml) white granulated sugar
the juice of half a lemon
4 T (60 ml) water

First make the panna cotta. Put the cream and the milk in a small saucepan. Split the vanilla pod in half, scrape out the seeds, and add the pod and seeds to the saucepan, along with the blade of mace. Bring gently to the boil, whisking now and then. Allow to simmer for a minute, then remove from the heat and lay a piece of clingfilm [saran wrap] directly over the surface of the liquid to prevent a skin forming.  Set aside for 15  minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.

In the meantime, fill a small bowl with a cup of  water and add the gelatine leaves, pressing down so that they are submerged. Set aside. Strain the cream/milk mixture through a sieve into a bowl and discard the flavourings.  Pour the mixture back into the pan, add the sugar and bring back to a gentle boil, stirring all the time to dissolve the sugar. After a minute remove from the heat. Scoop the gelatine leaves out of their water and squeeze out any excess water.  Put them into the hot cream and whisk lightly to dissolve the gelatine  Lightly oil 4 deep ramekin dishes or dariole moulds and pour the cream into them (you can also make this in a single dish or jelly mould).

Allow to cool on the counter for 20 minutes, and then refrigerate for at least 5 hours.

When you're ready to serve the dessert, put the blueberries in a sauce pan, add the sugar, lemon juice and water and bring gently to the boil, stirring frequently so that the sugar dissolves. As soon as the mixture begins to bubble, turn off the heat. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

Remove the panna cottas from the fridge. Fill a shallow bowl with very hot water and dip each dish in the water for 30 seconds (shorter if you're using metal moulds).  Use a sharp knife tip to loosen the sides of panna cottas and release the vacuum.  Now unmould them onto little flat plates. (The easiest way to do this is to place each little dish face-down on your - clean! -  hand and with the other hand smack its base sharply so that the jelly plops out onto your palm.)  Slide onto plates and serve with the warm blueberries.

Makes 5 small panna cottas.  Print Friendly

Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar

I don't know why prickly pears aren't more popular in this country. With their sweet perfumed taste, an elusive mixture of kiwi fruit and watermelon, and their gorgeous nubbly seeds, they are a rare treat in midsummer.

Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar

My childhood friend Margaret, who lived on a smallholding near ours, introduced me to prickly pears, which grew on a towering cactus behind the barn.  I didn't believe her when she said you could eat the fruit from this plant, with its huge, frightening paddle-shaped leaves, so she put on some gardening gloves and picked a basketful.

She warned me not to touch them:  I did, of course, and later spent hours tweezing the little hairs from my fingertips. The next most important thing, Margaret, aged 8, told me, was that prickly pears should always be served ice-cold, and I have followed this instruction all my life.  I also still use her method of peeling the fruit, using a knife and fork (see recipe, below).

Those pears were a lovely green; these - from my local Pick 'n Pay - are an arresting deep pink that is so intense that my poor cheapie camera broke into a sweat trying to focus on them in poor light (hence the crappy picture).

In this recipe I have combined the pears with with tart, sweet, snappy seedless grapes - coming into high season in the Cape - and a dusting of sugar whizzed up with frozen rosemary needles.  I spied the frozen rosemary while I was rummaging in the freezer for the prickly pears, which I'd put there to cool off, and the combination of sweet pear with a hint of resiny rosemary is just delicious.

Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar

10 ripe prickly pears [cactus pears]
a big bunch of crisp seedless red grapes
1/2 cup (125 ml) granulated white sugar
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, frozen overnight
the juice of half a lemon

Chill the pears by placing them in the freezer for 45 minutes (or overnight in the fridge). Push a fork into the flesh of each pear to secure it and cut off the top and bottom. Now, using a sharp knife, divide the skin of each pear into four quarters lengthways, cutting about 1 mm deep.

Using another fork, peel away each section of skin, which will come away easily if the pears are fully ripe.  Slice into discs. Halve the grapes and place all the fruit on a chilled platter. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and toss gently.

To make the rosemary sugar, strip the rosemary needles quickly from their stalks (they thaw fast) and place them with the sugar into the small chopping/coffee-grinding attachment on a blender (or use a mortar and pestle). Quickly blitz or pound to a fine dust. Don't worry if a few stray needles remain intact.  Take the dish to the table and serve the 'dust' separately: if you put it on beforehand, it will dissolve into the salad.

Serves 6 as a dessert.

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Bar-One and Coffee Ice Cream Bombe, with built-in sauce topping

Bar-One and Coffee Ice Cream Bombe, with built-in sauce 

As voluptuous as a buttered buttock, this creamy, chocolatey pudding is so easy and versatile: you don't need an ice cream maker to make it, and it doesn't need stirring during the freezing process.

 Be warned, though, it's decadent: the word 'sinful' doesn't come close to describing this dessert. It's shockingly, scandalously rich, and probably not suitable for anyone over the age of 12.

This recipe uses Bar One, a much-loved South African chocolate bar very similar to a Mars Bar. If you can't find such a thing where you live, use good-quality chocolate instead (but the bombe will come out without its rich toffee topping).

It also contains chopped Chuckles, which are similar to Maltesers. You can omit these if you like, or use chocolate chips, or chopped, toasted nuts, or crushed amaretti biscuits.

Because I was making this for my kids, I didn't add any booze, but the angels will sing if you add a slug (about 3 Tbsp; 45 ml) of whiskey or a nutty liqueur to the mixture.

This recipe is a happy kitchen accident: my idea was to make a yolkless mousse from Bar Ones (a hot chocolate sauce made of melted Bar Ones is very popular in South Africa) and then freeze it. I was dismayed to find that the toffeeish components sank to the bottom of the bombe mould, and then cheered up when I tipped it out to find that the sauce I'd planned to make (from a reserved Bar One) had made itself.

Bar-One and Coffee Ice Cream Bombe
4 x Bar Ones (55 g each)
½ cup (125 ml) sweetened condensed milk
3 Tbsp (45 ml) instant coffee granules
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract or essence
2 cups (500 ml) whipping cream
4 egg whites (use fresh, free-range eggs)
a tiny pinch of salt
125 g Chuckles (or Maltesers), lightly crushed (see notes above for alternatives)

Lightly oil a 1-litre metal or glass bowl and line with a large sheet of cling film, pressing down well so that there are no air bubbles. You could also use a glass terrine dish, or even a metal loaf or cake pan. Place in the deep freeze for twenty minutes.

Now melt the Bar Ones: first, chop them into chunks, using a heavy knife. Place in the microwave and cook, on medium, in two to three one-minute bursts, stirring every minute, until they are melted and gloopy. If you don't have a microwave oven, put a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water, add the chocolate chunks, and allow to melt slowly, stirring now and then.

Using a wire whisk, or an electric one, beat the condensed milk, instant coffee granules and vanilla extract into the melted chocolate mixture. Set aside to cool for a few minutes. In a separate bowl, whip the cream to a nice soft billow. Set aside. Put the Chuckles (or Maltesers, or toasted nuts) into a polythene bag and, using a rolling pin, bash them lightly to form a rough crumble. Now, in a new, spotlessly clean bowl, and with a clean whisk, beat the egg whites and a tiny pinch of salt to soft, cloudy peaks.

Take a large metal spoon and fold two dollops of the egg white into the chocolate, in order to loosen the mixture. Now gently fold in the remaining egg white. Sprinkle with the crumbled Chuckles. Fold in the whipped cream.

Pour the mixture into the prepared, plastic-lined bowl or pan and place in the freezer. Freeze until firm (about 3 to 4 hours, depending on your freezer). Unmould onto a cold platter and peel off the clingfilm. Allow to soften for ten minutes, then cut into slim slices with a knife that you've dipped in hot water.

Serves 8-10. Print Friendly

Muriel's Pecan Pie

My friend and co-blogger Muriel has written one of her ever-sparkling pieces on our shared blog, Salmagundi, about teaching her wine-maker pal Dean how to make a pecan pie. Now, I haven't tasted this pie, but if it's Muriel's, it's bound to be toothsome, because she's a fine cook. (Okay, that's enough mutual backslapping for today.)

Muriel has asked me to post the recipe here, and this is what she has to say about it:

'I’ve always loved pecan pie, but it’s always seemed to me to be one of those exotic desserts you could never conjure up at home. (A Chinese friend recalls how Three Cup Chicken seemed ‘a restaurant dish’, and was astonished when she learnt – at school – how easy it was to make; this is my Western version of that.) But then pecan season came around and there were loads of fresh pecans in the local co-op, and I thought I should at least give it a try. I looked for several recipes but none came out how I remembered pecan pie from when I was a teenager (which was the first time I had it). Through a bit of trial and error (all the results were edible, although some didn’t look so good), we came up with this one. It’s fabulously decadent, fun and easy to make (someone can help you while dinner is on), and so successful that now we make two at a time: one isn’t enough.'

Muriel's Pecan Pie

For the pastry:
1 cup (250 ml)cake flour
a pinch of salt
100 g cold butter
2 t (10 ml) caster sugar
1 egg
4 t (20 ml) ice-cold wter
1 t (5 ml) lemon juice
a little fresh lemon zest (optional)

For the filling:
130 g pecan nuts
about 60 g butter, melted
200 ml (just under a cup) brown sugar (treacle sugar if you’re feeling particularly decadent)
3 eggs, beaten
100 ml golden syrup
5 ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla essence

1. Sift the flour and salt. Cut the butter into the flour, then rub it in with cold fingertips until it resembles rough breadcrumbs. Add the caster sugar. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, water, lemon juice and zest. Add to the flour and butter and mix quickly and lightly into a dough (the less you handle it, the better). Wrap in clingwrap and put in the fridge for about 30 mins. Take it out, roll it quickly and lightly into a circle, and use it to line a pie dish. Bake the case at 200 C for about 10 minutes (don’t let the edges brown).

2. Take the pastry case out of the oven and arrange the pecans over it in a single dense layer.

3. Beat the melted butter, sugar and beaten eggs together until foamy. Continue beating while adding the syrup. Add the vanilla essence.

4. Pour the syrup mixture carefully over the nuts (they will float to the top). Bake at 180 C for about 40 minutes. When you take the pie out the oven, it will still look runny – leave it for about 20 minutes to set.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

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A delight from the Greek islands: Kythera-style Yoghurt with Stewed Sweet Grapes

I never, ever, ever, ever, ever eat pudding, but I darn well ate this. Here is a most unctuous and intriguing dessert: sweet, late-season grapes, stewed in a light syrup, and served with a combination of thick, creamy Greek yoghurt and mascarpone.

 Stewed Grapes with Mascarpone & Yoghurt.

This unusual recipe comes from my dear friends Michael and Michele Karamanof, a Johannesburg couple who are superlative cooks.

Mike and Michele first tasted this dish on the island of Kythera, in Greece, this year. 'It's a distinctive dish of this island,' says Michele. 'The recipe uses the very last grapes of the season, which are very sweet, and just beginning to shrivel.'

She adds that the original recipe she and Mike tasted used only thick Greek yoghurt: 'But the yoghurt you get on Kythera is sweeter and richer than South African Greek-style yoghurt, which tends to be slightly sour. So I added a little mascarpone to the recipe.'

Kythera-style Yoghurt with Stewed Sweet Grapes

3 bunches of late-season sweet seedless grapes, such as Sultana grapes
2 cups (500 ml) water
300 ml white sugar
2 cloves
one x 2-cm-long stick of cinnamon
2 cups (500 ml) thick, full-fat Greek-style yoghurt
1/2 cup (125 ml) mascarpone

Pull the grapes from their stalks, rinse well in cold water, and drain. Heat the water, sugar, cloves and cinnamon in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Bring to the boil, tip in all the grapes, and turn down the heat. Cook, uncovered, at a low simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, or until the syrup has reduced by a third. Remove from the heat, set aside at room temperature, and allow to cool completely.

Just before serving, whisk together the yoghurt and the mascarpone. Pile the mixture in a big billowing mound into the centre of a large flat serving platter. Using a slotted spoon, arrange the stewed grapes around the edges of the platter. Pour some of the syrup over the grapes, and splash some of it over the yoghurt mound.

You could dish this into individual pudding bowls, but I think you should do as Mike and Michele did, which was to pass it round the table, with some small teaspoons.

Serves 4-6.

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Earl Grey Granita with a shot of gin: good after curry

Atul Kochhar's unctuous and fragrant Almond Lamb Curry (Vadama kari kozhambu) was on the menu on Wednesday night, when my friend Bertrand, a wonderful cook, was up from Cape Town for the night. This Southern Indian recipe comes from Kochhar's brilliant book Simple Indian, which is my all-time favourite Indian cookbook, eclipsing even those of my food heroine Maddhur Jaffrey. I love the contemporary feel of Atul's food, his light and simple approach, and his extraordinary talent with spices.

Atul, the owner of London's Benares restaurant, was the first Indian chef to be awarded a Michelin star, and, Egad, Sire, I can see why.

Anyway, I was so caught up in spicing and dicing and all the whirling-dervishing that goes into making a curry that I did not give a thought to dessert, and there was nothing vaguely pudding-like in the cupboard.

Apart from sugar, tea, lemons and gin. And here was the result: a perfect zingy end to the meal.


Earl Grey Granita with a shot of gin

160 ml [3/4 cup] granulated white sugar
750 ml [three cups] boiling water
three Earl Grey tea bags
juice of one lemon
very finely grated lemon rind
a little gin, very well chilled. Bombay Sapphire is nice but Gordon's will do.

Six or so hours in advance, put a large, flat metal dish [a clean roasting pan is ideal; a ceramic one will do] in your freezer and turn the freezer to its lowest setting. Pour one cup of boiling water over the tea bags and allow to steep for ten minutes. Remove the teabags. Pour the remaining two cups of boiling water into a glass bowl, add the sugar, and stir until completely dissolved. Add the lemon juice and the tea. Allow to cool completely, then refrigerate. Two hours before serving, strain the mixture into the frozen dish, which should be smoking cold by now, and place back in the freezer. After about half an hour, or when the mixture starts to get slushy, scrape and scratch the mixture with a fork to form crystals. Continue scraping and scratching every twenty minutes or so, so you end up with a pile of icy, fluffy, crystalline flakes. Set a timer so ensure that you don't forget to scrape: if you do, the mixture will harden and you will have to start all over again.

Half an hour before serving, put some martini glasses or small dessert bowls in the freezer.

To serve, add a scoop of granita to each glass, top with a pinch of lemon rind, and trickle a tablespoon of ice-cold gin down the side of the glass, so that it pools at the bottom.

Serves 6.

Note: if you'd like a snowy, sorbet-like consistency, whip the slushy mixture with an egg beater two or three times during the freezing process. Print Friendly